By Liliana Usvat
At nearly 10,000 feet altitude the region is extremely dry, being in the rain shadow of the Himalaya, relying on snowmelt for most its water. Freak incidents of intense rain can be devastating.
Pakistan may now hold the Guinness World Record for most trees planted in a single day by a single person, but India can now claim the record for most trees planted in under an hour.
Volunteers in Dungarpur, India attempted to plant 600,000 trees in 24 hours:The volunteers planted mango, neem, teak, and Jatropha
Jatropha
Jatropha Tree
Jatropha
Teak tree
Teak
neem tree
Neem
Mango Tree
. Once planted the trees will be adopted by local people — and supervised by the Indian Forestry Service — to ensure that they are water and properly cared for.
On 10/10/10 some 9,000 volunteers planted 50,000 saplings in just 33 minutes. The event took place on land owned by the famous Hemis Buddhist monastery in the region of Ladakh and was sponsored by the Live to Love Foundation, of the Drukpa lineage.
The most trees planted by a team of 100 people in 1 hour is 40,885 and was achieved by Haltugaon Forest Division, Kokrajhar in partnership with 135 Infantry Battalion (TA) Eco Task Force and 15th Battalion the Dogra Regiment (all India) in Kokrajhar District, Assam, India, on 29 April 2012.
The motto of the record attempt was ‘Plant Trees, Save Lives’ and the aim was to save the forests of the region and to increase environmental awareness.
Depending on the source (the Guinness site doesn’t have info on the event yet, though officiators were present), either 50,300 or 50,033 willow saplings were planted over 33 minutes and 25 seconds. That beats the previous record, set in Peru earlier this year, where 27,166 saplings were planted by 8,000 people in an hour.
Willow Trees Help Mitigate Intense Rain Storm Flooding
In fact, it goes well beyond record setting novelty. There’s a very practical aspect to planting willow trees in the high and cold desert environment of Ladakh. While Pakistan was experiencing devastating floods this summer, Ladakh also experienced severe weather, with intense cloudbursts causing flooding. The trees can help mitigate the effects when this happens again.
In Canada The average British Columbian planter plants 1 600 trees per day, but it is not uncommon for veterans to plant up to 4,000 trees per day while working in the interior. These numbers are higher in central and eastern Canada, where the terrain is generally faster, however the price per tree is slightly lower as a result. Average daily totals of 2500 are common, with experienced planters planting upwards of 5000 trees a day.
Quite often, tree planting contractors will deduct some of the cost associated with the operation of the contract directly from the tree planter’s daily earned wages. These imposed fees typically vary from $10 to $30 per day, and are referred to as “camp costs”. In some cases, rookie tree planters end up owing their employer money for the first few pay periods.
Based on statistics for British Columbia, the average tree planter: lifts a cumulative weight of over 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb), bends more than 200 times per hour, drives the shovel into the ground more than 200 times per hour and travels over 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) with a heavy load, every day of the entire season. The reforestation industry has an average annual injury rate of approximately 22 claims per 100 workers, per year. It is often difficult and sometimes dangerous.
Spruce
Climate scientists believe human-induced global deforestation is responsible for 18-25% of global climate change.
Trees grow three times faster in the tropics than in temperate zones; each tree in the rainy tropics removes about 22 kilograms (50 pounds) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Australian forests have been heavily affected since European colonisation, and some attempts have been made to restore native habitats, both by government and individuals. Greening Australia is a national Non profit set up to run the “National Tree Program” initiated by the Federal Government in 1982.Greening Australia completed the 1 Billion Tree target and has gone on to become one of the major tree planting organisations in the country. There is a strong volunteer movement for conservation in Australia through Landcareand other networks. National Tree Day is organised annually by Planet Ark in the last week in July, encouraging the public to plant 1 million native trees per year. Many state governments run their own “Million Tree” programs each year to encourage community involvement.
Cost
As little as US$90 will plant 900 trees, enough to annually remove as much carbon dioxide as is annually generated by the fossil-fuel usage of an average United States resident.
Europe
Scientists here – and across Europe – know that climate change is likely to have a big impact on how well trees survive and thrive in the future, and how resistant they may be to a new wave of disease which the predicted warmer conditions may bring.
As the trees are being planted, they are measured and assessed. This is the base level data against which their future growth and health will be compared. Measurements will continue for decades to come.
In the Crychan Forest plot alone, some 6,000 trees are being planted. It’s just one of dozens of similar sites ranging from the Azores in the south, up the 1600 miles of the Atlantic coast through Britain and up to the Isle of Mull.
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Environment and Society 